Rep. Keith Ellison Compares Surveillance of Muslim Community to Japanese Internment During WWII

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Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison (D) compared the surveillance of Muslim communities to Japanese internment camps.

Ellison, a Muslim himself, was responding to Rep. Steven King’s (R-NY) earlier proposal that surveillance be increased on communities where “you know a threat is coming from.”

Ellison reacted: “We don’t have enough law enforcement resources to just go after one community. And remember, we went after a community in World War II, and the Japanese internment is a national stain on our country, and we are still apologizing for it.”

King responded dismissively: “No one is talking about interment. We’re talking about following the Constitution. What the NYPD is doing– yeah, they have thousand cops working on counter-terrorism, [but] 16 plots against New York have been stopped. If any of those had gone through, we’re going to have hundreds or thousands of people dead.”